Turkish court rejects appeal against Wikipedia access ban

An Ankara court on Friday rejected an appeal by the Wikimedia Foundation for the removal of a ban in Turkey on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation, a nonprofit charitable organization dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual, educational content, and to providing the full content of these wiki-based projects to the public free of charge.

The Wikimedia Foundation claimed that the ban on the online encyclopedia was a violation of the right to information. The Ankara 1st Penal Court of Peace, however, turned down the appeal of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Turkey blocked access to Wikipedia last Saturday, through a court measure used to block access to pages or entire websites to protect “national security and public order.”

The Turkish Telecommunications Authority (BTK) said an Ankara court ordered that a “protection measure” related to suspected Internet crimes be applied to Wikipedia.